IN VINO VERITAS

A friend of mine gave her son some wine recently while on holiday in Spain hoping that he would be introduced to the pleasures of drinking as opposed to finding out the contrary by getting shit faced down the Ilford Palais on a Friday night. After a small glass he turned to her and said 'Mother, I defy anyone to tell me that alcohol doesn't enhance life' or something like that and I am inclined to be with him on these words of truth. Last night my lips were once again in union with a glass or two and I can honestly say I felt the best I have since coming out of hospital three months ago. Almost as good as the first cup of coffee I could have after being starved for two weeks.A crack team or think tank as they are known, of 400 people came up with five steps to happiness which I like to think I and probably most people put into practice but it is never enough is it? Why not bring the steps up to ten and place a bottle or two at the top. Most of those that reach a hundred ( years, not steps ) are all drinking and my sister who works in an old people's home said they all have a secret stash of sherry somewhere. When the government or someone worries about our drinking habits I often wonder why they are so surprised we drink so much. When Henderson asked me if I thought he drank too much I told him I thought he didn't drink enough and wondered how he copes.

I thought I had imagined it when I saw a wild boar running amok around the town, but I have since read that it had somehow entered the city walls and crashed through the window of a school and was finally shot or tranquilised by the FIFA agent I used to work for.

Apart from becoming a Formula One driver and succeeding in an art robbery one of my other ambitions is to be drunk in possession of a cow as I think it might be perfectly legal. It would be fun to do the same night as shooting a Scotsman in the walls of York with a bow an arrow and getting away with it. Right now I am wondering if it is legal to shoot my fellow citizens in the same way from my kitchen window as they are the reason the government worries over drinking habits. Why can't they be civilised alcoholics like me?

The Spanish are masters at 'having a song and dance'. Not in the the way we would expect them to but with things like opening and closing doors, on being asked the origin of the words bossa nova, discussing the merits of a tortilla they ate earlier, and my bete noir, anything involving hammers. Just the thought of this tool gives me a headache. Tomorrow we are going to the mountains and there is one part called I believe, Cotatuero or the claves de cotatuero which I like to look at from the comfort of a bar that has a nice open fire while everyone else climbs it or falls down. Someone wasn't happy with the silence of the mountain so took a hammer and nailed bolts into and if it takes your fancy you can go up there in your heels and attempt to walk round it on a ledge.